Church bulletin templates: what goes in a bulletin, and a free maker

A church bulletin is the printed sheet an usher hands each person at the door on Sunday. It carries the order of service, the week’s announcements, the people to pray for, and how to reach the church. Type your church name and this Sunday’s sermon below and the cover and the order of service fill in. The full maker is free, runs in your browser and needs no account.

Free tool you can try here

Make your bulletin cover now

Type your church name and this Sunday’s sermon and watch the folded bulletin fill in.

This free tool is made by Church Posting.

Church name

Sermon title

Sermon passage

Order of Service

1. Welcome and announcements
2. Call to worship Psalm 95:1-7
3. Song Come, Thou Fount
4. Prayer
5. Scripture Hebrews 12:18-29
6. Sermon A Kingdom That Cannot Be Shaken
7. Offering
8. Benediction

Cedar Hill Baptist Church

Sunday Worship

Today: A Kingdom That Cannot Be Shaken

Use it free

The maker is free, needs no account to start and opens with your words already in it.

What goes in a bulletin

Ask before you put a name on the prayer list, and keep the list off any copy of the bulletin you post online. A family going through a hospital stay may want the church to pray without the whole internet knowing.

Three common layouts

The folded letter suits most churches. A half sheet works for a short order of service with three or four announcements. Print a few large-print copies in 16 or 18 point type for anyone who asks, and keep them at the welcome table.

A weekly routine for the church office

The second reader on Thursday catches the wrong date that one person always misses. Save last week’s bulletin as the starting point for this week’s, so the contact panel and the giving panel never have to be typed again.

What you may print

The Bible text comes first. The Berean Standard Bible was dedicated to the public domain by its translators on April 30, 2023, so a church may print any amount of it. Other translations each set their own rules for printing in a bulletin, so check the copyright page at the front of the Bible your church reads from.

For older hymns, the line is the year of publication. As of January 1, 2026, works published in the United States in 1930 or earlier are in the public domain, according to Duke Law’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain. The words of “Amazing Grace,” “Holy, Holy, Holy” and most of the hymnal’s older hymns may be printed with no license. A modern hymnal sometimes prints an edited text or a new arrangement, and the U.S. Copyright Office says the copyright in a new version covers what the editor or arranger added. Copy the words from an older source, or check the lines printed under the hymn.

A song published in 1931 or later is usually still under copyright. CCLI is the company that licenses most worship songs to churches. Its Church Copyright License lets a church “Print song lyrics in bulletins, programs, and song sheets for your congregation.” Check that each song is covered by your license before you print it, and under each one give the title, the writers, the copyright line and your church’s CCLI license number. Streaming the service online needs a separate CCLI Streaming License, and CCLI’s page points churches that stream song recordings or backing tracks to its Streaming Plus License.

Ideas for a better bulletin

• Put next Sunday’s sermon passage on the back, so families can read it at home during the week.
• Print a small map of the building on the inside panel, with the nursery, the restrooms and the classrooms marked.
• Give the children a page of their own with the sermon passage and two questions they can answer.
• Keep a “This week” box with every meeting and its room, so nobody has to ask the office.
• Run the same layout every week, so people know where to look.

Here is a “This week” box that answers every question an usher gets at the door.

This week

• Sunday 9:15 AM, Sunday school, rooms 4 to 9
• Sunday 10:30 AM, worship, sanctuary. Nursery is open in room 2.
• Wednesday 6:30 PM, prayer meeting, fellowship hall. Youth meet in the youth room.
• Saturday 8:00 AM, men’s breakfast. Sign up at the welcome table.

Make one now

The bulletin maker builds a folded letter or a half sheet from a form. You fill in the church name, the order of service, the sermon, up to six announcements, a prayer list, the contact lines and your CCLI license number, and the bulletin takes shape beside the form. It saves your work for next week, and it prints to paper or to a PDF. Your church’s song slides use the same hymns, and every public domain hymn is in the hymn library with its words ready to paste.

A bulletin that carries a baptism or a new member can also hand the family a baptism certificate the same day.